Make Money With Social Media

If you’re looking to get some free money, then you can try to make money with social media. Using social media is one way to make money online and start a micro business with $0 startup costs. Since the vast majority of social media is free, then the money that you make with it is free.

Technically social media is any website where the user is able to contribute content (also considered web 2.0 sites). Content might include full articles, small posts, comments, “likes”, sharing with others, rating systems, and even character development (in games). There are 6 different types of social media, including social networks, blogs & microblogs, content communities, collaborative projects, virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds. Here are some common examples of each type:

• Social Networks: Facebook, LinkedIn
• Blogs & Microblogs: Twitter, Tumblr
• Content Communities: Pinterest (Images), YouTube (Videos)
• Collaborative Projects: Wikipedia
• Virtual Game Worlds: World Of Warcraft (Massive Multiplayer Online Games or MMOs)
• Virtual Social Worlds: Second Life

There is money-making potential with each type. There are thousands of social media sites online, but only the most popular ones have significant money-making potential. The reason for that is because your ability to reach and influence an audience is directly associated how much money you can make. That means the platform itself has to be popular, AND you have to gain a following within that platform or create a virtual property that is valuable to others.

Is Free Money From Social Media Actually Free?

Most social media, including the most popular ones, do not require fees. You can create a following and leverage that following to make money for free, so theoretically it’s actually free. However, like any other micro business you could potentially incur costs to grow it or grow it faster.

Virtual Game Worlds and Virtual Social Worlds, such as World of Warcraft and Second Life could require fees. The methods of making money with these types of social media could also take more time and creativity. Some examples are given below.

Like any micro business or freebie strategy it could take time to start making money with social media.

How To Make Money With Social Media

Each social media platform was created for a specific purpose. The first step to making money is to understand why the platform was created and then maximize the use of the features that they give to accomplish their purpose. If you support the platform for the reason it was created, then the platform will reward you simply because that’s the way that it’s designed.

Since there is such a large variation among all the different types of social media, this article cannot describe each in detail. Some sample money-making strategies are given. However, another general step is to increase your following so that you have a bigger reach and influence on an audience. When you have that, then other businesses will pay you for the marketing value that you offer, or you can collect advertising revenue if the platform allows it.

Here are some examples of ways to make money with specific platforms:

Facebook used to allow a greater reach for posts than it does currently. When a post was previously published it would display to all of your friends and followers. Now it will only display to a small percentage. Facebook changed this because they want to grow their advertising. Therefore you must pay to increase the reach or do a lot more manual work, such as sharing the post in multiple groups and encouraging engagement from those who actually see the post. When they “like” the post or comment on it, then Facebook will display to additional friends and followers. Since Facebook has enough users to be considered the third largest country in the world, it can never be ignored in any discussion on social media. However, the money-making potential on Facebook is not as direct as other platforms. It would definitely be the central hub of all social activity for any money-making strategy. So if you wanted to make money on YouTube, you would supplement YouTube activity with Facebook. Also, with Facebook you can sell things since they have a marketplace that is similar to classified ads.

Twitter is another platform that can be included with any other social strategy. It is the only microblog that is of any consequence, but it’s popular enough so that “microblogs” are always included in a discussion of social media. Kim Kardashian makes about $10,000 per tweet. The most popular blog platforms are WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr. Making money and getting free stuff with blogs is discussed in detail. See Blogging For Free Stuff. Since a blog is a type of website, see also Make Money With A Free Website. You can offer advertising on the website in a freemium model, or you can be paid to create sponsored posts, similar to the way a journalist gets paid to write for a magazine.

Content communities can include all types of content. The one with the most money-making potential is YouTube. Creating a YouTube channel and uploading videos on a regular basis is called video blogging or vlogging. Similar to blogging, you can create sponsored posts. YouTube also has a robust ad platform so you can collect advertising revenue. The higher your following, the more video views you’ll have, and the more ad revenue you’ll collect. The highest paid YouTube star in 2016 made $15 million.

By nature, collaborative projects such as Wikipedia are created and maintained to offer a free service to anyone who wants to use it. I know of no way to make money with Wikipedia except to improve SEO rankings with back links in Wikipedia articles. That has to be done cautiously because Wikipedia has multiple contributors and editors for quality assurance, and if it’s not the best link that can be provided then someone will change it later. Remember that it’s important to consider the reason a platform was created. Something you could try is to own the collaborative project. You can create your own Wiki or forum and build a following of users and contributors. Then you could collect donations just like Wikipedia does, or you could place advertising to earn advertising revenue.

Virtual Game Worlds and Virtual Social Worlds require much more creativity. These virtual worlds have virtual economies with virtual services and products for which it is possible to charge real money. An expired article that I read talked about a man in Australia who bought a virtual island for $26,500 in real money and was making over $100,000 in real money a year by charging virtual hunters a fee for hunting on his “land.” The island is part of Entropia Universe. Virtual Gold Farming and Virtual Realty Sales for real cash have been accomplished on multiple occasions. See Extravagant and Outrageous Virtual Goods and Planet Calypso Player Sells Virtual Resort for $635,000.00 USD.

How Big Of A Following Do I Need To Make Money on Social Media?

Obviously the bigger the following the better. As you begin to have a small following, you’ll start with smaller compensation fees, but then your fees can go up as your following increases and you’ll target higher-profile gigs.

As explained on the Blogging For Freebies page, a blogger would need at least 30,000 followers to even begin soliciting businesses for free products to review.

An article on Gizmodo says “your average, run-of-the-mill celeb or internet-famous ‘influencer’ with a few million followers” can make $75,000 per Instagram ad and $30,000 per paid tweet. This suggests that Kim Kardashian’s $10,000/tweet mentioned above was underestimated since she is among the top influencers of all celebrities online. An article on Jezebel claims that Jojo McCarthy makes about $700 per post on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. She has about 16,000 followers on each platform.